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Five juveniles arrested on graffiti charges

All face class C felony charges due to damage costs associated with the graffiti

TUALATIN - A 16-year-old graffiti tagger who gave a public apology last month ap-parently isn't sorry enough.

Tualatin police arrested five juveniles Wednesday morning for graffiti. All five will be charged with a class C felony because of the damage costs associated with the 22 different properties tagged with graffiti.

One of the juveniles, Juan Nava, 16, of Tualatin, went through Municipal Court just last month on charges of carry-ing graffiti tools - a violation of the city's new graffiti ordi-nance. The teen was not ordered to pay any fines but was sen-tenced to community service and a public apology to the City Council.

Apparently the apology wasn't heartfelt.

Officers arrested the five male juveniles - ages 12 to 16 - at about 2:15 a.m. Wednes-day, according to reports. The boys were on what officers called a 'graffiti painting spree,' which targeted 22 separate locations in the Stoneridge neighborhood. The spree report-edly lasted about an hour.

Sgt. Royanne Mathiesen noted that the police were alerted to the area because of a call from a resident.

The boys' tagged homes and other property with 'SSC13,' which likely stands for 'south-side criminals,' Mathiesen said.

The juveniles were arrested and charged with criminal mis-chief in the first degree, a class C felony. Four of the five juve-niles were listed as Tualatin residents, and one was identified as a Wilsonville resident.